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True potential of a wilding army


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Then I respectfully disagree here. For these reasons:

-How do we know it was a smaller army? Also, they could have had better armament and organization than the Mance's one.

-Artos the Implacable could have gotten his name for another achievements.

-Lot of shame time? I don't recall that. I'd like you to show me the textual evidence for that.

-Killing William Stark doesn't mean the killed the entire Stark army.

-Stannis's victory was huge. But he got 1,000 wildlings killed and another 1,000 captured during the battle. Not the 20,000. His army was around 1,500 Knights, mounted soldiers, heavy horses, and and mounted bowman.

Raymun united the clans north of the Wall as King-Beyond-the-Wall. He has seen the Night's Watch decline and growing laxness and in 184AL took advantage of the situation.[2] sending his reavers over it, after establishing a toehold for themselves on the Wall, they used thrown ramparts of their own and dropped ropes and ladders for his people to cross over. The Night's Watch, was caught off guard as Redbeard horde came down upon the north, its lord commander Jack Musgood was called Sleepy Jack, forever after.[3]

Eventually Raymun's host had met a bloody end on the shores of Long Lake, caught between Lord Willam Stark of Winterfell and the Drunken Giant, Lord Harmond Umber. During the fight, Lord Willam was slain and his younger brother, Artos Stark, known as the Implacable, slew Raymun Redbeard. Raymun's brother fled from battle and was forever after known as the Red Raven. The Watch arrived too late to fight the wildlings, but in time to bury them, the task that Artos Stark assigned them in his wroth as he grieved above the headless corpse of his fallen brother.[3]

This is from the Wiki, for anyone to read.

Most of them are my assumptions from the abailable data. Since Redbeard army sneaked unnoticed by the watch I guess it was a smaller army than Mances. Remember that the NW had more men and garrisoned castles at that time.

Mamouths and giants cant climb, and nobody has seen one south of the wall in centuries so we can be sure Redbeard didnt have those units in his army.

Finally I asume it was a bloody battle because a Lord of Winterfell was killed there. We ve seen lots of battles in this five books and no first commander is ever killed. We have to look back to battles as the trident or redgrass fields to have that kind of examples. And we know they were bloody as hell. Normally Lords are heavy guarded by elite warriors, and only enter in the fight in key or desesperate moments.

Finally a Lord Stark calling his banners and joining the Umbers also makes me guess its an army unlist 3-4 times bigger than Stannis one. And we dont know of other conflicts, so its also an assumption that "the implacable" came from there.

Theres little text information, but overall I think this are the most likely interpretations from what is given.

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Well the thing is we know that they r brave. However they will break ranks and either seek individual glory or run. If they are drilled everyday by a capable commander and stannis if nothing else is capable with the addition that most of the troops are probably already blooded and some minor victories to start off so they get expirience working cohesively,WHY can't they be very deadly and a huge asset? To me you would have a MUCH harder battle politically getting northerners to accept them and fight along side them due to generations or hatred

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At the Bridge of Skulls he had met the Weeper and three hundred wildlings and won a bloody battle. But the victory had been a costly one. More than a hundred brothers slain, among them Ser Endrew Tarth and Ser Aladale Wynch.

This is open to interpretation since the weeper survived and none of the books battles ends with everybody dead..... Anyway to pay more than a 100 brothers slained, and god know how many injured (usually unlist double) for 200 wildings shows that they are a real threat.

It's impossible that Bowen Marsh had more than 300 men. Likely far fewer. 700 on the entire Wall, about 50-100 of them in Castle Black, a whole bunch (at least 300) in Eastwatch doesn't leave him with many men at the bridge of skulls.

And everybody knows how "good" a commander the Old Pomegrenade is.

Most of them are my assumptions from the abailable data. Since Redbeard army sneaked unnoticed by the watch I guess it was a smaller army than Mances. Remember that the NW had more men and garrisoned castles at that time.

Mamouths and giants cant climb, and nobody has seen one south of the wall in centuries so we can be sure Redbeard didnt have those units in his army.

Finally I asume it was a bloody battle because a Lord of Winterfell was killed there. We ve seen lots of battles in this five books and no first commander is ever killed. We have to look back to battles as the trident or redgrass fields to have that kind of examples. And we know they were bloody as hell. Normally Lords are heavy guarded by elite warriors, and only enter in the fight in key or desesperate moments.

Finally a Lord Stark calling his banners and joining the Umbers also makes me guess its an army unlist 3-4 times bigger than Stannis one. And we dont know of other conflicts, so its also an assumption that "the implacable" came from there.

Theres little text information, but overall I think this are the most likely interpretations from what is given.

Since the NW didn't make it in time for the battle, it's pretty much impossible that the Starks or Umbers gathered a lot of men and made it in time for the battle. They'd have to take what was in Winterfell and Last Hearth itself, what could be gathered in a day or three, and what was directly on the way.

Castle garrisons for Lord Paramounts number from 200-500.

Either way, that doesn't matter. The number of Wildlings altogether is too low to make a meaningful contribution. Even before the Battle at the Wall and the subsequent losses, they number only 1-2% of the Westerlands' population. That's not enough, not by a far margin.

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Finally I asume it was a bloody battle because a Lord of Winterfell was killed there. We ve seen lots of battles in this five books and no first commander is ever killed. We have to look back to battles as the trident or redgrass fields to have that kind of examples. And we know they were bloody as hell. Normally Lords are heavy guarded by elite warriors, and only enter in the fight in key or desesperate moments.

That's a pretty big assumption. You don't need the battle to be bloody in order for the Lord to be killed there - all you need is a Lord who leads from the front (like Robert) and an enemy who will go for him specifically.

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Depends who they are fighting and in what context.



As it stands in a 'traditional' westerosi battle against a typical lordly army they don't stand a chance. However as raiders, fighting in guerilla style, using ambushes and avoiding pitched battles they could be effective.



Alternatively they could be trained, Robert the Bruce is apparently meant to have trained a few thousand men intensively before the Battle of Bannockburn and sent away untrained men who were unable to fight in the dense formations of spear and pikemen that the Scots used to counter the English cavalry. Historically the Scots would have been more amenable to military command and control than the Wildlings seem to be based on their description and behaviour so far (they fall apart and break formation quickly in Jon X ASOS), but GRRM could go that way. Given that the Boltons don't have a huge army training a couple of thousand might be believable in story terms and make enough of a difference to establish military control in the north.



On the otherhand what kind of fighting are we going to see? If the parts of the Bolton alliance turn on each other Northern conspiracy style then there will be fewer disciplined troops to fend off wildlings. Alternatively pressure from wights and white walkers might keep the wildlings busy up on the Wall.


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